Typically we don't report on firmware updates, this is because usually firmware updates just address bugfixes, but when an update adds significant new features to a player we see it as being as good as a new player being announced. Late late last month we reported that Cowon had released a beta firmware update that added m3u support as well as gapless playback to lossless formats, now they've released the second beta firmware update which, to much joy, has added lossless playback to mp3! Full list of updates/fixes below: Firmware 2.31 beta2: Support gapless playback in MP3 files. Improved DivX3 playback performance and hours of continuous playback. Fixed the error that audio synchronization was not working properly when some AVI 2.0 files are searched in 0 second. Fixed the error that some files display frame rate incorrectly. Fixed the error that audio plays faster than video in some video files. Fixed date created of DMB, DAB, and recording files.

I know that for quite a few people gapless is not all that important, none the less it's great that for those of us that listen to albums in full. Being able to listen to music properly, without that click between tracks, really does improve ones audio experience. It seems that Cowon are working very very hard to make the S9 one of the best players available, and with last weeks announcement of that ceramic white S9 I think I might finally bite the bullet and get one.

Download page: [Linky]
iAudiophile thread: [Linky]

Thanks to Doug and 34.50